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the pool had been there almost as long as he could remember but as his brain battled with the theory of surface tension he struggled to remember just how long he had been aware of its existence and what it had come to mean and as all this bubbled up from the recesses of his mind he realised that the inky black depths were calling to him and despite knowing that this could never have a happy ending he could not resist leaning ever closer trying to focus on what he thought he could see reflected in its cold meniscus

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Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge? Are you open to sharing your dark side? Then read on.

Do you have a dark side?

Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so, join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.

Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday

Share your dark side?

I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.

dark | side | thursday | thirtyseven

Blood rushed to his head.

His legs grasped in a firm grip, strong fingers encircling both calves, he was swaying. His eyes closed, tight, against the piercing white light. Fighting the nausea and trauma.

He felt the slap, cold, from the hand, the huge hand, striking his buttocks hard. He didn’t want to cry, didn’t want to show fear. But cry he did, one short, sharp, yelp, and his eyes opened, sticky, blinking.

He felt himself being spun round, not roughly, but still he imagined he was looping around inside a (far from) funfair ride.

And he was cold. Shivering. His body was damp, the air around him a stark contrast to the place from which he had been torn.

All around him was blurred. In that white light shapes moved, sometimes approaching, more often receding. Muffled voices. Machines humming, bleeping.

He was pushed down onto a firm surface covered in a rough white fabric. One of those huge hands loomed out of blurred white clouds and held his body down as another wrapped him tight in yet more of the rough white fabric. His arms pinned in front of him, his legs held tight together. Only his head left untouched. He tried to move, he could only manage slight turns of his head. He opened his mouth to speak, to demand an explanation, all he could manage was a pitiful mewling noise, not a single word could he form. Trying again, he succeeded only in making louder versions of the same mewling noise. The shadowy shapes around him moved closer. A huge face pressing down at him, dark eyes looking into his. He was lifted. Rocked from side to side, whilst dark eyes held him tight, making what he imagined dark eyes thought were soothing noises. They weren’t. Suddenly, in a swift vertigo inducing movement, he was placed back down on the white fabric covered surface.

Another shape approached. Holding something in its hands. The air around him thickened and his vision blurred as what seemed to be a plastic lid or tent was placed above and around him. Unable to speak, he decided to practice his mewling. Fitful mewling that this time appeared to elicit no response. He gave up. Struggled a little, trying to free himself, gave up. Again.

A hand lifted the lid, reached toward him and he felt a slim tube inserted into his nose. Air rushed in. More mewling. More struggling. Giving up, again, he managed to roll on to his side, still tightly bound.

Another shape approached him. Seeming smaller than the others. Less sure, less confident, less threatening. The shape reached out towards the roof above him. An arm resting on the blurred surface of the plastic. Fingers splayed out, pressing against the plastic, as if seeking to touch him. Unable to do so.

Again he heard those words ‘Don’t let them take him…’

The hand lifted away.

The light above flickered through the plastic, the surface below vibrated.

He was moving.

The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.

Share this:

Like this:

Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge? Are you open to sharing your dark side? Then read on.

Do you have a dark side?

Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so, join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.

Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday

Share your dark side?

I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.

dark | side | thursday | thirtysix

He was the man in black.

There was no going back. He had to fight back.

Back to what? Back in black? Or should he swear allegiance to the cowardly white. He had no damned idea. He floated in a none place, somewhere between here and there, not quite anywhere. Full of fear. Flags fluttering, symbols, colours, meaningless. All of it.

Floating.

And yet, he was damned if he was going to give in, not now. Not after all he had been through, not after all the endless circles he seemed to have circumnavigated, ceaselessly . In search of, in search of, what exactly? In search of her. The woman that had haunted him since that time long ago, that warm evening, that hole. In the ground. The fake plastic flowers. Taking photographs. How much of what he could recall was real?

His mind curled into a virtual ball inside the walls of his polished skull, pulling deeper inside, tighter and tighter. Quivering deep inside him. Afraid of what, he could no longer remember.

Floating.

And then? Then it had all become confused. His dreams, his nightmares had converged, conflated, collapsed. He could no longer tell reality from fantasy, night from day. Life from death.

There had been flames, fierce burning flames, and old flames. Plates. Plates with bloodstained handprints, stairways and airways. Constricted airways. Hands held tight. Taunting, teasing, not wanted. Statues and towers. Flowers and towers. The tower of death. He had climbed. He had lost. His way. He couldn’t stay. Not welcome. His time had come, and passed away.

His mind clenched into a fist. A startled sphincter, repelling entry. The world, a tight hard ball, deep inside his empty skull.

White faces, and long white incisors. Howling at the moon. Stories, gory stories. Wrapped in candy, and spread with poison. Happy endings. Stories never ending. Frauds and fallacies. Favours and Quavers. Chuppa chups. Will o’ the wisps.